23: Chapter 23: The mopping-up operation is complete; resistance...

"Wind Shadow Archers, attack."

Lin Xiao gave the order once again.

"We obey."

Xue Ying and the others immediately entered the Void Land, and the next moment, they opened fire with full force.

"Swish, swish, swish~"

Countless pale cyan streams of light erupted, pouring onto the battlefield like a violent storm.

The surrounding Four-armed Demon Apes, whether they were pouncing on Zhong Yue and the others or rushing in from other directions, all suffered fatal blows, their bodies instantly exploded by the shots.

In just over ten seconds, the thousands of Four-armed Demon Apes within their field of vision were completely slaughtered.

"This lethality..."

Even though he was mentally prepared, seeing the terrifying reaping ability of the Wind Shadow Archers, Lin Xiao was greatly shocked, and immediately after, overjoyed.

The addition of the Wind Shadow Archers was a qualitative change; it increased his army's combat capability significantly, and he no longer had to worry about there being too many monsters to kill in time.

Everyone entered the eastern Void Land and pushed toward the depths of the gray fog.

The seventh layer of the Void Land was several square kilometers in size; with such a large area, the difficulty of clearing it had undoubtedly increased greatly.

Along the way, the Wind Shadow Archers would occasionally raise their hands and loose an arrow, shooting down the Void Monsters that emerged.

With the blessing of Eagle Eye, their visual range was extremely far, and the Void Monsters in the gray fog were shot down before they could even get close.

After advancing a few hundred meters, Lin Xiao and his group encountered the largest wave of monsters.

Tens of thousands of Void Monsters swarmed in from all directions, seemingly endless, surrounding them tightly.

"Fire."

Without needing Lin Xiao to order it, Xue Ying and the others immediately opened fire with full force. Countless pale cyan streams of light poured toward the monster wave, each stream capable of taking the lives of several Void Monsters.

Under the firepower poured out by the 20 Wind Shadow Archers, in just one minute, over ten thousand Void Monsters were shot down.

The others were not just watching either.

The Frost Giants threw Frost Burst Stars, which exploded thunderously among the monster horde, taking the lives of a large number of Void Monsters while also dividing the battlefield into different sectors.

The Black Armor Soldierss and Dragon Cavalry also charged out in unison, slaughtering the swarming Void Monsters madly.

During the melee, the Wind Shadow Archers automatically shifted fire, targeting the more distant Void Monsters, so there was no need to worry about friendly fire.

Ten minutes later, this wave of monsters was wiped out by the group.

Lin Xiao stood in place, calmly observing the battle situation.

It must be said that the monster strength in the seventh layer of the Void Land was indeed high.

This monster wave numbered over a hundred thousand; although most of the Four-armed Demon Apes inside were Tier 0, the number of Tier 1 Demon Apes reached tens of thousands, and there were over a thousand Tier 1 elite monsters.

Even the Tier 2 Four-armed Demon Apes numbered in the thousands, and there were over a hundred powerful Tier 2 elite monsters.

Unfortunately, all beings were equal before the Wind Shadow Archers. Only those Tier 2 elite monsters could avoid being killed by a single arrow, but when the second arrow arrived, they were also blown apart on the spot.

As the main force of the monsters was annihilated, the remaining monsters no longer posed a threat.

Consequently, Tu Lie led the Dragon Cavalry to push deeper, searching for the hidden monster nests.

There were a total of five monster nests within this Void Land, which were found and destroyed one by one by Tu Lie and the others.

At the last monster nest, the remaining ten thousand Void Monsters wanted to put up a desperate fight, but as a result, under the torrent of arrows from the Wind Shadow Archers, they were quickly and completely exterminated.

Clearing this Void Land did not take much effort; most of the time was spent looking for the monster nests.

[You opened a regional treasure chest and obtained the following items: 550,000 Source Crystals, 60,000 units of food, 50,000 units of wood, 50,000 units of stone, 6,000 units of iron ore, 600 units of silver ore, Blood-Drinking Spear (Excellent), Rapid Construction Scroll × 10.]

Lin Xiao glanced at the Rapid Construction Scrolls; as the name implied, this type of item was used to speed up construction, with one reducing the construction time by one hour.

He did not stop, immediately leading his army to clear the other three Void Lands.

The further they went, the greater the difficulty of clearing.

It was not that the monster strength in the later Void Lands was higher, but rather that they were given more time, allowing them to gather more Void Monsters.

In the final Void Land on the north side, over two hundred thousand Orcs gathered at the edge of the territory, dense and packed, with no end in sight.

Such a terrifying scene would likely make the vast majority of lords feel their scalps tingle and leave them helpless.

However, they encountered Lin Xiao's territory.

Zhong Yue passed through the invisible barrier without any fear, then began a massacre; he was like a walking, towering mountain—wherever he went, death followed.

It was no exaggeration to say that in this level of Void Land, he was invincible.

In a previous Void Land, a Tier 2 giant monster had spawned, with extremely formidable strength, but it was smashed to pieces by a single hammer strike from Zhong Yue.

With Zhong Yue leading the Black Armor Soldierss to open up the situation, once the Wind Shadow Archers entered, what awaited the Orcs was ruthless slaughter.

[You opened a regional treasure chest and obtained the following items: 600,000 Source Crystals, 60,000 units of food, 60,000 units of wood, 50,000 units of stone, 6,000 units of iron ore, 700 units of silver ore, Black Iron Bow (Excellent), Targeted Recruitment Token (Excellent)]

The regional treasure chest of the seventh layer of the Void Land had quite high returns; although no high-value items were opened, it still provided Lin Xiao with a bountiful harvest.

There were also resource points that might appear on the newly converted territory.

These were all benefits brought about by clearing the Void Land.

Lin Xiao quickly completed the distribution of the harvest, keeping what he could use and selling what he could not.

The size of the territory surged to 25 square kilometers.

This territory was already very large, with both its length and width being no less than five kilometers.

The larger the area, the higher the probability of resource points appearing.

Lin Xiao didn't keep any, selling them all off and trading them for various resources he needed, which he brought back.

First was the number of troops.

Lin Xiao used Targeted Recruitment to fill the population of his Level 2 territory in one go.

Now, there were a total of 20 Frost Giants, 20 Wind Shadow Archers, 60 Black Armor Soldierss, and 60 Dragon Cavalry in his territory.

They were either Perfect-grade troops or Rare-grade troops.

After filling the population, the next step was various Cultivation resources, to increase the strength of his heroes and troops as much as possible in the shortest amount of time.

"There should only be one last round of battle left," Lin Xiao muttered.

The further it went, the longer the time for the Void Land to connect to the territory would be. Once the eighth layer of the Void Land was resolved, if the ninth layer of the Void Land wanted to connect to the territory, it would have to wait until after the Seven-Day Assessment.

Only one last round of battle lay before Lin Xiao.

...

The change in the size of Lin Xiao's territory was discovered by Jin Ruxuan immediately.

While shocked, he also did not hesitate to increase his investment, giving Lin Xiao more investment and helping him bring in more temporary followers.

The protection fees handed over by these temporary followers were exchanged by Lin Xiao for various Cultivation resources, which were used on his own army.

Just as the entire territory was sparing no effort to improve itself, Tu Lie suddenly approached Lin Xiao.

"Lord, my Cultivation speed has slowed down a lot."

"Continuing to invest Cultivation resources in me is no longer appropriate."

Tu Lie's words shocked Lin Xiao, and he hurriedly asked for details.

It turned out that after his attributes broke through the Tier 2 limit and entered the Tier 3 category, Tu Lie felt a significant decrease in his own Cultivation speed.

At first, he didn't pay much attention to it; after all, the higher the rank, the greater the difficulty of Cultivation—this was common knowledge.

How could the difficulty of Tier 3 Cultivation be compared to Tier 2?

However, Tu Lie remained cautious; as his strength slowly improved, he gradually felt an additional resistance.